Treasuries Slip A Bit on FOMC Minutes, Obama Tax Talk

By Michael Aneiro

Treasury yields have been falling modestly most of the day Wednesday but turned upward following the release of the latest FOMC meeting minutes a little while ago, all while President Obama was hosting a press conference to discuss the fiscal cliff and whether there are any remaining four-star generals in his employ who aren’t currently embroiled in scandal. Here are Dow Jones’s Kristina Peterson and Michael R. Crittenden reporting on the Fed:

Policy makers largely deemed the Fed’s September decision to begin buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month as effective in lowering long-term interest rates, in turn helping to support spending and a recovering housing market, according to minutes of the Oct. 23-24 meeting. The minutes were released after the customary three-week lag. Several Fed officials thought the benefits of the bond purchases were likely to grow over time.

Some Fed officials are convinced that the central bank should continue buying bonds next year, while others worry that its expanding portfolio of assets might disturb financial markets or make it harder to tighten policy when the time is right. Some Fed officials think more time is needed to evaluate whether the bond buying is working.

Ten-year Treasury notes were recently down 1/32 in price to yield 1.593%, per Tradeweb data, and the 30-year bond was down 4/32 to yield 2.729%.